John Conness

John Conness (22 September 1821-10 January 1909) was a US Senator from California (R) from 4 March 1863 to 4 March 1869, succeeding Milton Latham and preceding Eugene Casserly.

Biography
John Conness was born in Abbey, County Galway, Ireland in 1821, the youngest of fourteen children. In 1836, he arrived in the United States as a 15-year-old immigrant, and he became a merchant in New York. In 1849, he moved to California during the Gold Rush, and he made a mining stake and sold supplies to other miners. He served in the US Senate from 1863 to 1869 as a liberal Democrat, and later as a Unionist and as a Republican. He introduced a bill to create Yosemite National Park, voted to abolish slavery, and advocated Chinese immigration and civil rights, and he was defeated for re-election in 1868. He died in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts in 1909.